[Solved] automate-eGPU EFI - eGPU boot manager for macOS and Windows

@goalque
So my egpu is now working on 10.14.1 with the EFI. I re-upgraded to see if mac_editor's method would do anything and before even trying that, it just worked. The only thing I can think of that would make a difference is, the first time I upgraded, I had booted with the EFI and left the egpu plugged in. Whereas this time I upgraded without any patches applied and the egpu disconnected.

What would be required, to get only the effect of apple_set_os.efi and MuxSetting=1 (as all I'm trying to do is disable the dGPU and force the iGPU and not get a black screen once booted under Windows) ?

All you have to do is to edit config.plist's MuxSetting value. apple_set_os.efi is loaded automatically.

Thank you for your fast answer...

So while when booting the USB EFI (by holding the option key) only shows a blank screen with the message "USB File System not found", it turns out that the keyboard is active.
When pressing q it restarted into refind which is configured to start Windows by default. However once in Windows, the iGPU isn't appearing in the Device Manager which indicates to me that apple_set_os.efi hasn't been loaded.

I'm a bit at a loss now, I've re-read this entire thread twice now, tried various methods and work arounds (including the "official" steps) but I've made little progress 🙁

@goalque
So my egpu is now working on 10.14.1 with the EFI. I re-upgraded to see if mac_editor's method would do anything and before even trying that, it just worked. The only thing I can think of that would make a difference is, the first time I upgraded, I had booted with the EFI and left the egpu plugged in. Whereas this time I upgraded without any patches applied and the egpu disconnected.

If you are going to do any macOS/software updates, please always boot normally (no patches, eGPU disconnected).

Download the attachment for your particular thunderbolt version, rename it to config.plist if needed, and replace the config. file on your USB stick (save the old one just in case). I cannot test this but should enable AMD GPUs as though native on TB1/2 if I have adjusted the plist correctly. Would appreciate it if someone could test and let me know.

Hi.
OK, I had assumed being an EFI folder that it had to be placed in the EFI partition, but apparently not.
I formatted the stick to fat32 in Windows, copied the EFI folder across and rebooted. This time pressing option showed two USB boot option, both with the same name entry.
This time I did see screens showing that no eGPU and when validating I had the screen to decide which OS to boot: windows or macos.
I selected windows, at the bottom of the screen "saving" was displayed and then it stopped there. No more progress, no boot. Keyboard was no longer active,
So after a few minutes I did a hard reboot, it immediately rebooted under windows, showed the windows boot spinner and stayed there. This is similar to what I had experienced in the past playing with just the apple_set_os.efi and disabling the amd dGPU in the device manager:
The boot spinner keeps spinning, I can see that the keyboard is active (capslock make the left goes on). It's like windows has booted but is stuck on the boot screen.

So I don't know if the activate egpu efi is working, or if it is but really you can't go with just the iGPU on the 2018 MBP

To do: Create my signature with system and expected eGPU configuration information to give context to my posts. I have no builds.

@jya You still did something wrong. The text ”saving...” means that the EFI app is unable to save the setting file to the USB stick.

You said: ”on the SSD EFI I have refind installed” -> why? You cannot use rEFInd. And please don’t use SSD, a normal USB stick works better.

I also said that use Disk Utility for formatting but you didn’t.

Confirm that your USB drive is NOT named ”EFI”.

Ok. This time I used Disk Utility to format the USB stick, copied the EFI folder across. I set MuxSetting to 1. Rebooted while holding the Option key. Booted the USB, set to boot the mac. It rebooted right after, all good.
I can see that when setting MuxSetting to 2, after a reboot the internal display is running off the Radeon 560X. So that seems to have an effect.

Unfortunately, when booting under Windows with MuxSetting == 1, I either get the Windows boot spinner, or that weird flashing white pattern on the screen. Windows is definitely up and running, the capslock key works. When I plug a USB device I hear the windows chime etc... Just nothing visible.

When booting under macOS with MuxSetting == 1, and I plug an external screen, both the internal display and external display are running off the Radeon 560X, is this the expected behaviour?

From time to time, attempting to access automate-egpu.efi just locks up. I found that the workaround for this is to remove the USB stick, restart press the option key, select macOS and then go into System Preferences -> Startup Disk and re-select Macintosh HD.

So so far, it hasn't worked much better than with the egpu-switch windows utility + apple_set_os.efi , I get exactly the same behaviour (either spinner or flashing white screen when booting). But it's much easier to recover, having the ability to simply boot the USB stick and reset things is a massive progress.

Now if only I could make that damn iGPU work under Windows 🙁

To do: Create my signature with system and expected eGPU configuration information to give context to my posts. I have no builds.